The Spirit Stone

by Katharine Kerr

  ‘It must be nearly a thousand now, then.’

  ‘Yes. There’s a superstitious legend about the runes, too. They’re supposed to contain a dweomer spell.’ Garin rolled his eyes heavenward. ‘Anything that’s no longer understood is supposed to contain a dweomer spell, of course. Don’t take it seriously.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry! I won’t. But now I know why Lin Serr has steel on its doors.’

  ‘We may learn slowly, but in the end, we learn.’ Garin paused for a smile. ‘Now, spell or no spell, I’m letting you borrow that staff because I can’t go to the battle myself. We’ve never had a formal badge for our envoys, but you’re new on the job.’

  ‘Very new.’ Kov could hear his voice shake and coughed loudly to cover it.

  ‘Just so.’ Garin smiled at him. ‘So I decided you might need something to mark your standing and keep your spirits up. This staff’s never left the city since the day my father’s father brought it inside. Carry it proudly, and never shame it.’

  ‘I’m very grateful for the honour. I’ll do my best to live up to it.’

  ‘That’s all any man can do, eh? Now get on your way. There’s a mule for you to ride, by the by, down at the muster.’

  Out in the meadow, five hundred dwarven axemen drew up in marching order, followed by a veritable parade of carts, each drawn by two burly menservants. The sappers and miners were milling around, scrutinizing each cart, repacking some, adding wrapped bundles to others. Kov invited Lord Blethry to come along as he and Brel Avro inspected the muster. Blethry murmured his usual polite remarks until they came to the line of carts. Most carried provisions, ordinary stuff all of it, but those at the head of the line were loaded with mysterious-looking crates, barely visible under greased wraps of coarse cloth that would keep them dry during summer rains. Embroidered runes decorated each cloth. Blethry fell silent, studying the runes, craning his neck to get a better look at the crates.

  ‘Can your read our runes?’ Kov said with a small smile.

  ‘I can’t, truly,’ Blethry said. ‘I was just noticing the wheels of your carts here. The design is quite striking.’

  Good parry! Kov thought. Aloud, he said, ‘A little innovation of ours.’

  Blethry nodded, and indeed, to his eyes the wheels must have possessed a fascination of their own. Instead of the solid slab wheels of Deverry carts, dwarven craftsmen had lightened these with spokes radiating from a metal collar that attached them to the axles. Strakes, that is, strips of metal studded to give them a grip on the road, protected the wooden rims.

  ‘Much lighter,’ Kov said, ‘but just as strong. Easier to fix, too.’

  ‘Stronger, I should think. I trust you’ll not be offended if our cartwrights look them over when we reach Cengarn? I shan’t be able to keep them away.’

  ‘Of course not. I’m sure our men would take it as an honour if they should copy them.’

  ‘Would you two stop jawing?’ Brel turned on them both impartially. ‘The sun’s up, and it’ll be hot soon. Mount up, both of you! Let’s march!’

  Kov and Blethry followed orders. During the long ride down from the mountains, whenever the contingent camped, Blethry found excuses to walk by the dwarven carts that contained the wrapped bundles and crates, but, Kov could be sure, no one would ever give him one word of information about their contents. The design of a set of wheels they were willing to share, but the formula for the mysterious cargo was going to remain a secret forever, if the Mountain Folk had their way.

  They reached the border of Gwerbret Ridvar’s rhan when they came to the dun of one of his vassals, a small broch tower inside a high stone wall, perched on a hill wound around by a maze of earthworks. All around it stretched litter from a military camp—firepits, garbage, broken arrows, broken tent pegs, and assorted ditches, hastily filled in. The dwarven contingent drew up to camp some distance away in a cleaner area. Kov remembered this dun as belonging to the clan of the Black Arrow, but men wearing Cengarn’s sun blazon on the yokes of their shirts came trotting over to greet them.

  ‘What’s happened to Lord Honelg?’ Kov asked Blethry.

  ‘I don’t know yet.’ Blethry gave him a grim smile. ‘But I’m assuming he’s dead. He turned traitor, you see. When I left Cengarn, the gwerbret was getting ready to march on him. From the look of things, Ridvar took the dun.’

  Cengarn’s men, left on fort guard, confirmed Blethry’s guess. Lord Honelg was dead, his lands attainted, his young son a hostage, his widow gone back to her father’s dun.

  ‘Who’s the new lord here?’ Blethry said. ‘Or has Ridvar reassigned the lands yet?’

  ‘He has, my lord,’ the fortguard captain said. ‘Lord Gerran of the Gold Falcon. You might remember him as the Red Wolf’s common-born captain, but he’s a lord now.’

  ‘I do indeed, and he’s a grand man with a sword and a good choice all round.’

  ‘We all feel the same, my lord. Are you marching down to Cengarn on the morrow?’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘His grace may have left already. He’s mustering his allies at the Red Wolf dun for the march west.’ The captain turned to Kov and bowed. ‘It gladdens my heart to see your people, envoy, with a war about to start.’

  ‘My thanks,’ Kov said. ‘But it sounds to me like the war’s already started.’

  ‘You could look at it that way, truly,’ the captain said, grinning. ‘But either way, we’re glad you’ve come in on our side.’

  The Mountain Folk weren’t the only allies of Gwerbret Ridvar who were readying themselves for the Horsekin war. At the dun of the Red Wolf, a good many miles south-west of the dun that now belonged to the Gold Falcon clan, Tieryn Cadryc and his men were only waiting for the arrival of his overlord to ride out. Preparing the warband for that ride fell to Gerran of the Gold Falcon, its lord and so far one of its only two members, the other being his young page Clae. Despite his sudden elevation to the ranks of the noble-born, Gerran still considered himself the captain of the tieryn’s warband, mostly because none of the tieryn’s other men could fill the post. Although the tieryn had a son, Lord Mirryn, Cadryc was leaving him behind on fortguard.

  Every night at dinner in the great hall, Mirryn would stand behind his father’s chair like a page. When Cadryc arrived, Mirryn would bow to his father, then without a word pull out the chair at the head of the honour table to allow Cadryc to sit down. He would wait to eat, too, until all the others at the honour table had finished their meal. After three days of this treatment, Cadryc had had enough.

  ‘Still sulking, are you?’ Cadryc said.

  ‘Well, ye gods!’ Mirryn snapped. ‘How do you think I should feel, Father, left behind out of the fighting like a woman?’

  ‘And what’s this business with my blasted chair?’ Cadryc continued without acknowledging the question.

  ‘Since I’m being treated like a servant, I thought I should act like one.’

  ‘Just sit down, and do it right now. You’ll drive me daft, hovering like that.’

  With a grunt Mirryn sat himself down at his father’s left hand, but he crossed his arms over his chest and stared out at nothing. The tieryn swung his head around to glare at his son, who pretended not to notice. Although most of the tieryn’s hair was either grey or missing, and Mirryn still sported a thick mop of brown hair to go with his freckles and the family blue eyes, no one would have doubted they were father and son, lean men, both of them, and stubborn.

  ‘If you starve yourself at my table,’ Cadryc said, ‘you’ll be too weak to fight even if I should change my mind, which I won’t, so by the black hairy arse of the Lord of Hell, stop sulking and eat your blasted dinner!’

  Mirryn went on studying the empty air. Finally Lady Galla, his mother, leaned across the table from her place at the tieryn’s right. ‘Mirro,’ she said, ‘please? This has been dreadful for all of us.’

  ‘Oh very well, Mam.’ Mirryn drew his table dagger from the sheath at his belt and placed it next to the trencher in front of him.
‘Shall I cut you some bread?’

  ‘If you’d be so kind.’ Lady Galla smiled at him, then favoured her husband with another smile, which he ignored.

  The ‘all of us’ to whom the lady had referred were the other occupants of the honour table. Besides the tieryn, his stout, dark-haired lady, and his son, Gerran was now eating with the noble-born, who included Galla’s niece, Lady Branna, and her common-born husband Neb. Branna, with her yellow hair and her narrow blue eyes, was a pretty young woman, but Neb was the nondescript sort, brown haired, skinny, neither handsome nor ugly. Most people would have ignored him, but Gerran knew his worth.

  Soon, however, Cadryc’s allies and vassals would appear to join the muster. Gerran was counting on the table filling up, allowing him to sneak back to his old place at the head of one of the warband’s tables over on the other side of the great hall, even though he had to admit that sharing a trencher with Lady Galla’s serving woman, Lady Solla, had its compensations. Every now and then her lovely hazel eyes would meet his when he offered her a slice of bread or passed her some portion of the meal. She would blush, and he would find himself at a loss for words.

  The times were simply wrong for pleasantries. The coming war filled Gerran’s waking thoughts. On the morrow, messengers from their most important ally arrived at the dun. When the gatekeeper came running to tell Gerran that Westfolk were at the gates, Gerran told the man to let them in, then hurried out to greet them. From a distance the Westfolk looked much like ordinary men, but close up their wild blood revealed itself. Their eyes had abnormally large irises, slit with vertical pupils like a cat’s. Their long ears curled to a delicate point like sea shells. Rumours claimed they were immortal, too, but that Gerran heartily doubted. At his invitation they dismounted, three archers with their curved short bows slung over their backs and a man carrying the beribboned staff of a herald.

  ‘Messages, my lord,’ the herald said. ‘From Prince Daralanteriel himself.’

  ‘Good,’ Gerran said. ‘Come into the great hall. The tieryn’s there.’

  As he followed them inside, Gerran was still wondering over the easy way the herald had called him ‘my lord’, since his shirt still bore the Red Wolf blazon, not his new gold falcon. Most likely the prince or his cadvridoc had described him at some point. Heralds, after all, remembered everything they were told or they lost their exalted positions.

  From the door of the great hall, Lady Branna watched the herald dismount, then hoist down a pair of bulging saddlebags. A dark-haired fellow who looked more human than elven, he seemed somehow familiar, though she couldn’t place where she’d seen him before. She followed him to the table of honour, where her uncle was sitting at the head with her aunt at his right. Branna sat down next to her on the bench just as Neb came trotting down the staircase.

  ‘Ah, there you are!’ Cadryc called to him. ‘Messages from Prince Dar, I’ll wager!’

  ‘They are, your grace,’ the Westfolk man said. ‘My name is Maelaber, by the by, and I’m Calonderiel’s son.’

  Aha! Branna thought. That’s why he looks familiar.

  ‘Then twice welcome, lad,’ Cadryc said.

  ‘My thanks. We’ve also come to lead your army to our muster. It’s too easy for Deverry men to get lost out in the grasslands.’

  ‘Now that’s true spoken.’ Cadryc paused for a smile. ‘It gladdens my heart to have you with us. Your prince is a farsighted man.’

  ‘He is that, your grace. I’ve also got a gift for Lady Branna. Councillor Dallandra sent it.’ Maelaber opened one of the saddlebags and brought out a large bundle wrapped in thick grey cloth and stoutly tied with leather thongs. ‘Books, I think. She didn’t tell us.’

  Courtesy demanded that Branna sit quietly until the tieryn gave her the parcel, but curiosity trounced courtesy. Despite her aunt’s dark looks, she got up and ran around the table to snatch the parcel out of Maelaber’s hands.

  ‘My thanks,’ she said with a grin. ‘I’ll just take these upstairs.’

  Branna avoided looking Galla’s way as she dashed for the staircase, but she did notice Neb scowling at her—but not for her lack of good manners, she was sure. As the tieryn’s scribe, he was going to have to stay at his lord’s side until Cadryc gave him leave to go. His curiosity would have to wait.

  Up in their chamber, she laid the parcel onto the bed, then flung open the shutters over the window to let in the sunlight. A few slashes with her table dagger disposed of the thongs. She unwound the cloth to find two leather-bound books and a scrap of pale leather bearing a note from Dallandra.

  ‘These belonged to Jill and Nevyn,’ the note read. ‘They should therefore belong to you. Study them well while the army’s gone, especially the larger one. Someday you’ll need to carry all this lore in your memory.’

  Branna laid the note down and pulled the larger book free of the wrap to lay it right onto the bed, despite the smell of ancient damp from its dark leather binding. It was far too large for her to hold, taller than her forearm was long. When she opened it, the smell of mouldy parchment made her sneeze. She wiped her nose on her sleeve, then saw, written on the first leaf, Nevyn’s name. With that sight memory flooded back. She could see the old man opening the book and pointing to a diagram of concentric circles marked by words that, in the memory, she couldn’t yet read.

  Jill never learned her letters until she was grown, Branna thought. Nevyn taught her. Tears blurred her sight, sudden hot tears that shocked her as they spilled. If only Nevyn were alive now, with his vast knowledge, if only he were here—but of course, he was there, opening the door to the chamber, in fact, though he was now as young and ignorant and as nearly powerless as she.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Neb said. ‘Ye gods, that thing stinks!’

  ‘It does.’ Branna pulled a handkerchief from her kirtle. ‘It’s made me sneeze, and my poor eyes!’

  While she wiped her face and blew her nose, he turned a few pages of the book. He frowned a little, mouthed a few words, then suddenly smiled.

  ‘I remember this,’ he said. ‘Do you?’

  ‘I do. You told me once you’d owned it since you were a very young man.’

  Neb looked up, his lips half-parted in shock.

  ‘I mean,’ Branna said hastily, ‘Nevyn told Jill that.’

  ‘I figured that. It just always surprises me, how much you remember.’

  ‘Me too. What’s this second one?’

  The smaller book turned out to contain healing lore, first a treatise on the humours, then a vast compendium, page after page of herbs, roots, symptoms, and treatments, and finally some instructions for simple chirurgery. The handwriting wavered, each letter spiky and oddly large.

  ‘Jill’s writing,’ Neb said abruptly. ‘I do remember a few things, here and there. She learned late, you see, and so her hand’s somewhat childish.’

  ‘I feel like there’s four people in this chamber. Do you feel that, too?’

  ‘In a way.’ Neb glanced over his shoulder as if he expected to see Jill and Nevyn standing behind them. ‘It creeps my flesh.’

  Branna closed the book of medicines and walked over to the window. Outside lay the familiar view of her uncle’s dun wall and the green fields beyond. She’d half-expected to see a different prospect, though the details had escaped her memory. Somewhere I’ve never been, she thought, not as me, anyway. Did I know the silver dragon when I was there? Ever since she’d seen Rori fly past Cengarn, the silver wyrm had never been far from her mind.

  ‘What were Prince Dar’s messages?’ she said.

  ‘Um? Jill, what did you say?’

  Neb was reading a page in the larger book. He was leaning over to peer at the writing, his shoulders hunched like those of a much older man. Again she remembered seeing Nevyn reading in this same book, sitting at a rough-made table with a dweomer light hovering above him. For a moment she saw their surroundings: a windowless stone room, and at the top of the walls ran a carving of circles and triangles, abruptly broken off as
if someone had deliberately defaced it. Stop! she told herself. You’re Branna; Branna, not Jill.

  ‘Neb, stay here!’ Branna made her voice as sharp as she could. ‘What were Prince Dar’s messages?’

  With a toss of his head Neb straightened up and turned to face her. ‘You’re right,’ he said softly. ‘For a moment I was back there. What did you used to call it? The other When?’

  ‘Just that. But we’re here now.’

  ‘So we are. That’s going to be our spell of safety, isn’t it? Stay here now.’

  ‘It’s a good one. We’ll need it.’

  Neb smiled, nodding a little. ‘But the messages,’ he went on, ‘were all about the army. He’s raised over five hundred archers and a good many swordsmen. He’s hoping to raise more before we join him.’

  ‘We? You’re not riding with the Red Wolf warband, are you?’

  ‘Of course I am. My place is at the tieryn’s side.’

  For a moment she could barely breathe. Neb caught her hand in both of his.

  ‘What’s wrong—’ he began.

  ‘I’m terrified you’ll get killed, of course,’ Branna said. ‘Why does he want you to go?’

  ‘To write messages if he needs some sent, of course.’

  ‘Very well, then, but you won’t be riding to battle, will you?’

  ‘I won’t. Will you look down on me because of that?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be stupid!’

  Neb grinned. ‘I’d be useless in a battle, unless they need someone who can throw stones with a fair degree of accuracy. I used to be good at slinging them at crows and squirrels.’

  They shared a laugh, and she felt the fear leave her.

  ‘After all,’ Branna said, ‘you are my husband now. I get to worry. You’re supposed to be touched by my devotion.’

  ‘That’s true spoken, and my apologies.’ Neb made a sweeping bow. ‘May I express my complete and total devotion to you?’

  ‘You may. How about the passion that burns within you?’